Chapter 140: Wait for Me, I'm Coming for You (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 140: Wait for Me, I'm Coming for You (5)
Wait for Me, I'm Coming for You (5)
After sending the data to Han Ju-hee’s personal email, I lie down on the bed and check my smartphone.
To put it in a slightly edgy, chuunibyou way—this world is lukewarm.
Because it’s not a world where people are constantly at each other's throats with blades, the methods for dealing with people aren't very advanced, and they struggle even to track me down.
The system isn't set up for Awakened to deploy immediately; instead, law enforcement agencies have to request cooperation from a clan before heroes arrive, which makes their operational efficiency pathetic.
If this were my previous world, they would have called in an Awakened special forces unit to crush me the moment I went rogue.
If my life as a fugitive dragged on and the problem was deemed severe, heroes specialized in tracking would eventually emerge, but for now, their movements are still sluggish.
Ah, they’ve finally arrived.
I watch the police enter the building through the CCTV I installed.
They must have requested cooperation from a clan, as the riot police charge in led by a hero wearing a flashy, glitzy costume.
However, all they’ll have left to do is pick up the criminals sprawled all over the floor.
I wonder where that detective, Oh Eun-yul, is?
Is she one of them?
The heroes who make it up to the fourth floor check the Awakened who have already been neutralized and are lying unconscious.
Once safety is confirmed, the detectives enter and handcuff the Awakened, bringing the situation to a close.
Since I took care of the guys in the basement and gathered evidence like the drugs, these people are headed straight behind bars.
I carefully watch the faces of the detectives on the screen, observing how they behave.
To be precise, I’m looking for the person who lays a hand on the safe on the fourth floor.
As they stand there perplexed about how to open the safe, a blue-haired hero approaches and crushes the safe with sheer brute force.
Wow... just how high is her Strength stat that she can rip that open with her bare hands?
As the people behind her gasp in surprise, the hero smiles as if it were nothing and steps back from the safe.
Bundles of cash and documents are pulled out, laid across the desk, and photographed for evidence.
While people are milling about in the clutter, a woman with her side hair shaved like a man's approaches and leisurely reads through the documents.
While her fellow detectives are busy searching for other things, the short-haired woman waits for an opening, then surreptitiously pulls out a single document and tucks it into her coat.
Good, I caught you.
I save the video and capture a still of the short-haired detective’s face.
I knew there’d be someone like this inside the police force.
I just hope that person isn't Oh Eun-yul.
I pick up another smartphone and place a call while watching the screen.
When the smartphone laid out as evidence begins to ring, the police and heroes all turn their heads and gather around it.
While everyone is looking at each other, a woman with black, neck-length hair steps forward and picks up the phone.
"Hello?"
So, you’re Oh Eun-yul.
Hearing the familiar voice, I smile as I look at Oh Eun-yul on the screen.
She has a fierce look in her eyes that gives off a strong impression, but overall, her features are sharp and quite pretty.
"Hello, Ms. Oh Eun-yul. Seeing as you answered, I assume you’ve secured the scene. Do you like the gift?"
"Thanks to Hero Jeong Yeon-woo, the citizens are safer now. Thank you."
Though her words are polite, she’s signaling to another officer with her hand, clearly intending to trace the call.
"Could I ask for a bit more cooperation?"
"If this is about a date, the answer is no. You’ll have to wait longer."
"I think I might get tired of waiting. When exactly can I see you?"
"It won't be long. Oh, and among the Awakened you caught, there should be a woman with a scorpion tattoo on her wrist."
Oh Eun-yul turns around, points to her own wrist, and mouths the word "tattoo" to the colleague who made the arrest.
Watching this play out is actually quite fun.
After seeing her colleague point toward the captured Zhou Yang, Oh Eun-yul continues.
"Yes, you mean the woman with all the scars."
"Ah, don't misunderstand—I wasn't the one who did that. She’s one of the women who kidnapped me. The last of the Awakened who carried out the terror attack on the police station. Please investigate her thoroughly."
I hang up the phone.
Oh Eun-yul, who was saying something into the phone, checks the disconnected call and sets the phone back down on the evidence table with a bitter expression.
The officer tracing the signal shakes his head when Oh Eun-yul looks his way.
If you’re that curious about where I am, you just need to walk about 100 meters down toward the intersection.
Having taken a room at a nearby motel, I stretch and check the document I photographed earlier.
The document that detective hid was this one, right?
The image quality isn't great, so it's not perfectly clear, but I count the pages she flipped through and identify the corresponding document.
Dongmyeong Materials. It looks suspicious no matter how you slice it.
Even searching the internet yields nothing—not even a common homepage.
Anyway, it means there’s something at Dongmyeong Materials. I hope Na Eun-jae is there.
"That’s not something I can speak about lightly."
Im Jin-ah speaks with a look of feigned bitterness as she reads the chat scrolling up the screen.
She was hosting a personal livestream as part of her effort to show her face to the public again, and she answered demurely when asked what she thought about the Jeong Yeon-woo incident.
Inside, however, she felt like she was walking on air.
A most-wanted criminal? If the police requested cooperation for his arrest, she wanted to go running immediately.
The worse public opinion of Jeong Yeon-woo became, the more Im Jin-ah’s popularity—as someone who had been in conflict with him—rose.
Forcing down the corners of her mouth to keep from smirking, Im Jin-ah spoke cautiously.
"But... it’s not like there weren't signs..."
While pretending she shouldn't, Im Jin-ah began to badmouth him.
"Yeon-woo and I went to the same high school, so I had many chances to see him. It’s a bit awkward to say this, but should I call him... gloomy? It’s hard to believe looking at him now, right? But back in school, he didn't talk to anyone and was always lost in his own thoughts. You know, those kids—every class has one."
The reason he had started avoiding people was Im Jin-ah herself, but she acted as if she had no idea.
She wasn't just lying; she truly didn't have the slightest clue why Jeong Yeon-woo had adopted that attitude in high school.
She remembered raping him, but she denied all the consequences that followed and felt no guilt whatsoever.
If Jeong Yeon-woo were to confront her and say, "It's your fault," she would likely find it beyond shameless—she’d find it absurd, wondering how it could possibly be her fault.
As messages of agreement began to fill the chat, Im Jin-ah grew excited.
"I thought he looked so lonely that I tried to talk to him and be friendly. But he seemed burdened by it, so I stopped. I regret that time so much, though. Not long after, Yeon-woo refused to come to school and became a hikikomori."
The chat went wild, with people saying they couldn't believe such a past for someone with Jeong Yeon-woo’s current image.
"Right, right? Unbelievable, isn't it? I was shocked when I saw Yeon-woo on Survival Hero too. He’s a completely different person. I don't know what happened, but anyway, he became more human, so that’s a good thing. And he’s pretty, so he’s popular."
The chat was a mess of differing opinions.
From messages defending Jeong Yeon-woo that annoyed Im Jin-ah, to jokes, to insults.
From the flood of messages, she picked out the ones that suited her taste and spoke as if they represented the majority opinion.
"A psychopath? What are you talking about? Well, I agree that no matter how much a person changes, their true nature doesn't... but Yeon-woo isn't that scary of a person. He just has his own world and an artistic temperament? A unique personality? He does act strangely sometimes."
She sounded like she was defending him, but she was subtly cutting him down.
Then, as if she had just remembered, she made a fuss and brought up the story she had been preparing since the start of the broadcast.
"Come to think of it, there’s also that. Do you guys know? About how Yeon-woo tried to run away from a dungeon before?"
At Im Jin-ah’s words, the chat began to scroll rapidly again.
Everyone knew the fact that Jeong Yeon-woo had fled a dungeon when he first started as a hero.
On Kwon Ye-jin’s Black Unicorn broadcast, he had once spoken about it casually with Yoon A-young, as if reminiscing about old times.
However, because he was at the peak of his success at the time, many people took it positively—as a success story of overcoming adversity or as a sign of his human side.
Even now, with his public image in the gutter, the view of his rookie days hadn't changed much.
Suppressing a laugh at the lukewarm reaction in the chat, Im Jin-ah continued.
"No, I don't mean back when he was a total newbie. I mean when we were hunting the Teki. You know, back then, when the special individual appeared and we lost our equipment and were in danger. Ah, I don't know if I should say this."
When she hesitated after bringing it up, the chat urged her to tell them quickly.
Watching the reaction, Im Jin-ah stalled a bit longer.
As she waited, donations asking her to tell the story kept popping up.
Donations of a thousand or ten thousand won were pocket change to a hero, but she felt a sense of fulfillment as if her popularity were rising with every donation.
"Ah... this is something only heroes know... but actually, as soon as Yeon-woo saw the Teki, he told the party members to abandon the dungeon."
Seeing the question marks flooding the chat, Im Jin-ah shook her head.
"No, not using a Treasure Orb to retreat. Just leaving the dungeon. Yes, running away."
The chat exploded at Im Jin-ah’s words.
Those who had been defending the annoying Jeong Yeon-woo denied it, calling it a lie, but their voices were buried under the sheer volume of the chat.
In a world where the prevailing concept was that one must stand tall and fight monsters without fearing for one's life, Jeong Yeon-woo’s actions were incomprehensible.
People began to insult him, asking why he would run when he had a Treasure Orb, or suggesting that he only played as a supporter because he was too afraid of getting hurt.
There were various opinions, but ultimately, they were all bashing Jeong Yeon-woo.
Satisfied with the atmosphere, Im Jin-ah was jumping for joy inside while struggling to maintain a neutral expression.
But she was so happy she couldn't help a slight smirk.
Turning her head to regain her composure, Im Jin-ah spoke with a frown.
"I like Yeon-woo, but even I can't tolerate running away with a monster right in front of you. That’s something a hero must never do. Heroes are the ones who must step to the front, fight, and defeat the monsters. I will never turn my back on a monster."
Seeing her speak so gallantly with a fierce look in her eyes, donations poured in praising her charisma.
Then, a fan of Jeong Yeon-woo, drowned out by the chat's momentum, asked a question via donation.
But in the end, Yeon-yu-jjang caught the Teki, didn't he? - WarmCondensedMilk
"Yes, Warm... you know you’ll get banned if you say that, right? Anyway, Warm-nim is right. He did catch it in the end. Because the party members... I’m starting to call him Yeon-yu-jjang too. Because we ignored Yeon-woo’s words and fought."
The chat caught fire again at Im Jin-ah’s words.
So the four of them fought without Jeong Yeon-woo? How did four people handle a special individual? Jeong Yeon-woo is the party leader, so the chain of command must have been a mess. The comments were endless.
In particular, Jeong Yeon-woo was famous for controlling the party with detailed orders as the leader.
Everyone knew his trademark phrase used at the start of a conquest.
The idea that his party members had ignored his orders and fought the Teki was shocking.
"I don't know the details. Anyway, we defeated the Teki and got out safely, so it’s fine. The party members are all wonderful heroes."
Im Jin-ah’s attitude—setting the fire and then stepping back as if she had nothing to do with it—was loathsome.
However, people were only talking about Jeong Yeon-woo; no one took issue with her attitude.
Just as she was basking in the reaction, a massive donation of one million won appeared.
Were you involved too? - Condensed milk
'Conden... conden? Condensed milk...?'
Im Jin-ah, whose English was weak, didn't recognize the word for yeon-yu and hesitated before speaking.
"Yes, Milk-nim. A million won... you’re quite the big player. But what do you mean, involved? I don't run away from dungeons."
As Im Jin-ah replied with a smile, another million-won donation appeared.
Wait for me. I'm coming for you, too. - Condensed milk
"..."
While she tilted her head at the incomprehensible donation, the chat messages began to fly like wildfire.
When people started freaking out, wondering if the nickname "Condensed milk" meant it was the real Yeon-yu-jjang, Im Jin-ah couldn't hide her bewilderment either.
The user had spent two million won—not an easy sum to throw away—in quick succession and sent an ominous message.
The person managing her broadcast quickly tried to look up the nickname, but the user had already left the stream.